Closed Cookie's Celebratory Compositions

[Mokuren]

At first I want to say that you may stumble some errors in my text. English is my second language and I apologize in advance for any mistakes.

Christmas was always a important festival in our familiy. When we were kids it was just the best. We made our wish list at the beginning of december and layed it on the window sill with a spoon as a weight. Why you may ask? Of course to let the christ child know what we want! That being said we always imagend the christ child as an angel with blond curly hair. In Austria we don't have santa claus but the christ child! We also celebrate christmas at the 24th and 25th is more of a normal day for us but let's start at the beginning.

In the night of the 23th december the christ child decorated the tree when we were kids. We learned later it was in fact our mother. Our only task was to keep our rooms clear haha It's traditiom here to decorate the tree the night before christmas.

The 24th is the magical day. I think this year we will even have white christmas. I used to live in our family home - so we celebrated together with our grandmother and we still do. As kids we have to dress nice and have to take a walk with our dad and visit a nearby forest with deers. It's still a tradition to this day and I love it!

When we came back home the christ child arrived and placed the presents under the tree! Sometimes it was not finished but we weren't allowed to take a look at it. It was all part of the magic.

Before we opend the gifts we sung the classic songs with "Stille Nacht" as the last one! The "Bescherung" was always our favorit part - like who doesn't like presents right? After that we ate christmas dinner with our grandmother. Liver dumpling soup. I know I know it's not the fancy duck or a chicken but they are the best just because oue grandma makes them every year.

So how is it different now? We still do the same things as kids. Me and my sisters don't live at home anymore. I am married now but we still visit my family. Take a walk with our dad and eat together with our grandma. Liver dumpling soup. Now we don't buy presents anymore we make them ourselves and it's really more rewarding than buying stuff. That being said I present you the dragon eggs from game of thrones for my older sister and a little snow forest in a jar for my little sister.


I wish you all magical holidays!

 

[SpaceTokki77]

every year around the holidays, i get together with my family and have a party for hanukkah! the kids take turns lighting the menorah while the adults sit around the fireplace, singing. i never sing along, probably because i sound like a goat, but it’s always magical hearing everyone’s voices together. the flames flicker the entire night, while we all move onto dinner. it’s traditional to eat latkes on hanukkah, which we do, but we also have our own tradition to eat a salad. it symbolizes us all coming together as a family and creating something amazing! usually, some small arguments happen around meal time, but we get past them. after dinner is done, we eat dessert, which always consists of brownies and ice cream. it hasn’t changed in years! as we enjoy our ice cream, we open presents. i love seeing the huge smiles on the kids’ faces when they see their gifts. after this, we give each other hugs and say our goodbyes, which is supposed to be quick, but ends up taking almost an hour, aha. but when we finally decide that it’s gotten late enough, everyone goes back to their respective cars and begins the journey back to their homes.

 

[princess.looking.for.frog]

Christmas was never a massive thing for my family. every year we put up a Christmas tree, but sadly this year we didn't because we are selling our place as we are moving. our Christmas is a simple get together before the actual day, and then we go on a holiday during and around the 25th. the reason we never really stayed at home for Christmas was my parents work, the only time it was easy to go on holiday was during Christmas. it was the only time they were free. my parents are the adventurous type, so our Christmas holidays lead us to many amazing places. every year is different, but we have gone on a captivating trip to Japan, a magnificent road trip through New Zealand, an exciting road trip down south of Australia to Kangaroo Island (featuring a terrifying bushfire), and a relaxing road trip up north to swim in cool creeks and walk the winding National Park paths. road trips are the especially special holidays we have, we would always keep driving, never settling down anywhere for longer than two days, so we visited so many exhilarating, and breathtaking yet also relaxing places. a few years ago we woke up on Christmas Day, ate glorious MacDonald's hotcakes and hushbrowns for breakfast, visited an old waterpark at the motel we stayed at, and just walked around some town that we happened to be staying at on Christmas day. just so fun and so many memories.

This year we decided to take it down a notch. we are only staying at two places, as a way to relax a bit more and not get stuck on the other side of the border. it is a little resort we have stayed before, a very long time ago. we stumbled across it while looking for places to stay, and we want to relive the nostalgia. I hope it will give us as many memories, if not more, as our previous trips. Happy Holidays everyone!

P.S. playing animal crossing on Christmas day is a tradition for me, I love the atmosphere.

a very accurate depiction of a roadtrip, but ignore the boulders, we don't have them here much.

 

[.MOON.]

My family normally gathers together at my parents home a few days before Christmas to celebrate my Mom’s birthday on the 21st of December. Sometimes my younger sister and her family will join the festivities but usually it’s just my husband, kids and myself. We look forward to it every year because my dad makes a HUGE pot of gumbo. (He’s a southern man from Louisana, so let’s just say cooking is his thing )There are normally fights (not physical of course… or is it? No just kidding, it’s more like heckling or teasing) about who will get the crab legs and who can eat the most. I lose every time but I’m more of a shrimp person myself so losing doesn’t really bother me. It’s just fun to watch everyone eat their gumbo and have a good time.

After we all have our fill of gumbo, my parents will pass out the gifts they bought for the kids and depending on what they get they will use them right away or be impatient like my youngest and ask when we are leaving. I always make sure to take leftover gumbo home for us to enjoy this time a year a little longer. Not to mention, the gumbo seems to taste even better the next day.

Spoiler: Yummy Gumbo

 

[Mairmalade]

And once again all caught up on viewing! Your entry up to this point should be accepted unless you have a message from me.

TBT events seem to be a tradition we all share.

 

[Halloqueen]

My family doesn't do anything particularly remarkable for the holidays; we exchange gifts, we have dinner, Mom and I play Scrabble. It's a quiet day of enjoying each other's company, and I try to make time to watch some movies if I can.

Christmas tradition, for me, is more in the lead-up rather than the day itself. Over the course of this past decade, I've become more and more interested in baking, and that led me to eventually becoming the baker in my family. Each December, I spend the better part of two weeks preparing cookies for family near and far, as well as for my best friend and her family. The first week is for the people I need to mail out to, so that they arrive as fresh as possible and in time for Christmas. The second week is for those who live in the area.

I tend to pull up YouTube on the laptop and play some Christmas music, so I can listen to it while I bake and really get in the holiday mood. The music from the TBT Advent Calendar definitely gets play throughout the process as well.

All that baking takes a lot of time and effort, but the happiness that my cookies bring to my loved ones makes it all worth it. That happiness, alongside the joy that people express when I've chosen a gift that they really enjoy, makes the Christmas season one of my favorite parts of the year.

 

[Nika]

This month is a special kind of month. The year is coming to a close and things get really hectic. But it’s important to slow down, relax and reflect back on what makes this particular month very special. One thing I love is building snowmen and seeing what people in my area have created. It’s cute to find out how others build their own snowman. Some are small, fat, silly, funny, cute and stunningly beautiful. I really love it when they’re adorned with accessories like santa hats, scarves, rocks and more. It’s all very cute and I’m always happy to make snow families in december. When the month reaches its end and new years eve arrives, I love to look at the beautiful night sky glittering with stars outside. In this moment of calm and peace before the celebrations, I reflect back on the good events that happened this year especially regarding my friends. They’ve always been there for me in good and bad times. As midnight draws close, the night sky is packed with fireworks that light up the area. It’s truly a sight to behold and I love enjoying a cup of hot cocoa while everything goes on. Finally, midnight strikes and the fireworks go all out. I’m in awe at the sight of all these colorful fireworks and amazing displays. Overall, this month holds a very special place in my heart and I’m always so excited for its arrival as the months pass by.

 

[StarlitGlitch]

In the past five years I’ve spent Christmas with my family once. It’s not because I don’t want to, I used to love spending time with my extended family. Growing up, my dad’s side of the family would get together every couple of months to celebrate holidays and birthdays. There were about 10 of us cousins, with only one boy, and we’ve shared a lot of good memories together. We even all share the same tattoo now.

Every Thanksgiving we’d pick names for Secret Santa. When we were little, we used to hide in a back room to tell everyone who we got. For some time, our parents picked for us to try to keep the “secret” part intact. Since we couldn’t have our sibling’s names, when we got older, we sometimes needed to switch which caused drama. More than picking out the presents themselves I remember the excitement on Christmas Eve of seeing who got who and what other cousins had gotten.

The year Wild World came out, my cousin who played Animal Crossing unwrapped it on Christmas Eve. We both talked excitedly about the game and hoped that I would open it up the next day so that we could play together. Thankfully, for my parents, the next day I found both Wild World and Mario Kart under the Christmas tree.

When I was in college, I studied abroad in Japan for a year and then later moved permanently for work. That, of course, meant I was no longer able to make it to gatherings. The last time I saw my family I went for a few weeks in summer to meet my first nephew. At that point, they were already used to not seeing me and were glad to be able to catch up. At the end, my father asked me if I would try to come back for Christmas that year. Even though I wanted to, I told him that since it would only be a few months away and I had already used up so much vacation time I would make sure to go the next year instead. That was in 2019.

Now, with Japan’s sudden law changes for non-citizens I’m not sure when I can safely visit them again. As we grow up and begin our own families, it has become harder for all of us to meet like we used to. While it feels like I haven’t celebrated Christmas in years due to being separated from my family I am looking forward to when we can be together again and even someday start my own family traditions.

Spoiler: extra photo not in contest

 

[Bob Zombie]

Disclaimer before I begin: I know I'm certainly not the only person who grew up poor, and I'm certainly not looking for sympathy. When I was a young child, I had no idea about my circumstances in life... my family, and the Christmas tradition described below, was everything to me and made me happy. And it still does.

When I was a kid growing up with my parents and three sisters in the countryside of a southern state, my family was poor. So poor, in fact, that we were on the county fire department's "holiday list," which contained the families that needed the most assistance to have either food for the winter, or toys for Christmas, or sometimes both. My family was on "both" lists. Every year about the second or third week of December the firemen would show up at our house and bring boxes of food and toy drive donations for my family. And while I certainly appreciated the toys (one particular year I got He-Man action figures AND Transformers which will definitely show my age), it was the box of food that I looked forward to. Specifically, I looked forward each year to the California Naval Oranges, a whole bunch of them. And yes, they absolutely deserve the capitalization and boldface of each word.

In my young hands, the oranges were so huge, so ripe, so sweet and juicy that I would be sitting on the floor of our kitchen tearing into one before the firemen even had a chance to say goodbye. If my mom didn't catch me in time, I would be well into a second or third in a flash. I thought they were so good that I would even each the white flesh off the skin... which I still do much to everyone's merriment when they see me doing that. Those oranges would see me through the times when we didn't have much to give each other as presents. In fact, to this day about a week before Christmas I take an impulse trip to the grocery store (this year's outlook: going tomorrow!) and buy the largest, ripest naval oranges I can find. I let them chill in the fridge overnight, and then plow through them the next day. If I'm feeling particularly nostalgic, I'll sit on the floor in my kitchen while I tear into them. Some years I'll eat one before I'm satisfied, some years I'll make three special trips to the store before I'm done, but Christmas is not CHRISTMAS! until I have my oranges.

For those reading this that may wonder if canned food drives or "Toys for Tots" bins make a difference... well, I'm living proof that they do. Consider donating whenever you're able to.

 

[Bluebellie]

I suppose my favorite time of the year has come! It not because of all the party, or the tasty food, or even waking up to presents. It’s the time of the year where I allow myself and little bit of freedom, and shop, shop and SHOP! All throughout the year I’m extremely stingy. I’m always calculating costs, creating budget spreadsheets, and counting all my pennies. Though some my call me extreme, I am glad to say that I have zero debt to my name. During Christmas time though, I allow myself the little bit of pleasure. I suppose I’m a closet shop-aholic….but only during Christmas time. This is the time of year where I forgot budgets and just go CrAzY! I start shopping in store, shopping online, and everyone gets presents! Not one, not two, Maybe I’ll give you 5….or 20. The sky's the limit. Nothing feels better than Christmas shopping. Shopping for my family, shopping for my friends, donating toys at the holiday toy drives. Then going home and secretly wrapping all these goodies, it’s such a high for me. It’s the best feeling ever! It doesn’t stop there though. Just as much as I like buying presents for others, I love buying presents for myself even more! Once I finish buying presents for everyone, it’s finally time for me. If the sky was the limit for everyone, the galaxy is the limit for me!

Then once the holidays are over, it’s time for me to recuperate, assess all the damage, and just stay low, and hibernate until next year.

 

[SinnerTheCat]

Besides the general decorating a Christmas tree, decorating around the house, buying presents for loved ones and preparing lots of food for the Christmas Eve (which is the most celebrated Christmas day here), my family has this tradition which comes from the region of Poland that I’m from – baking small regional Christmas cookies. Around a week before Christmas Eve, my mom and I bake around 20 different types of cookies over the course of 4 days. It’s a very fun and nostalgic process for me because we’ve been doing this together since I was able to form them with my small hands. These cookies range from very easy to make and ones with like 30 different steps, but all of them are very sweet and delicious. Most of them are done with a little bit of alcohol, that’s why they have this special taste to them, but don’t worry, the amount is very small so it’s safe for little kids to eat the cookies too. The recipes have been passed down in my family for a very long time, so I treasure them like nothing else.
Sadly, ever since I moved to another city because of university, I wasn’t able to help my mom with the cookies, because my Christmas break starts on December 24th. But, I try my best to find some time to prepare one of my favourite cookie type here in my small kitchen and then give some to my friends from university. This year I prepared cookies called coconut rolls which came out incredibly good, very tasty and remind me lots of home, which I can’t wait to come back to for Christmas!!

Spoiler: cookies

 

[Foreverfox]

I grew up with my parents in separate houses, and have fond Christmas memories with both, but since I used a tradition from my dad's house for my pageant entry, this will be about Christmas with my mom. Every year, we would meet my grandparents at a halfway point for both of us - Somerset, PA. We stayed in a hotel, my grandparents would always bring the same tiny tree, which I was always extremely fond of, and we would just talk and laugh so hard we cried. My grandpa was the only one who would get into the hotel pool with me, so I have great memories of us playing in the pool. In fact, that's one of my strongest, and best memories of him.

As a child, I always got a new robe from my grandma for Christmas. One year in particular, I remember sitting with my grandma, in our robes, and she taught me how to crochet. I still do it and I think of her every time.

My grandma passed in 2020 from Covid, and my grandpa passed in April from Covid. My mom has the tree that they brought every year and said she'd bring it for me to put out. This is the first Christmas that my mom and I won't be calling my grandpa to wish him Merry Christmas.

The picture is of my Charlie Brown tree, which I started putting up every year a few years ago, and it reminds me of the tiny tree they brought. (Next to a picture of me, my sister, and my brother lol)

Additional photo not part of submission. This is the actual tree, but the picture was on my phone, so I couldn't include my username card in with a physical copy of the photo in order to use it as my entry photo.

 

[Kattea]

Myself, my sister, and my parents all live in different cities so getting together for Christmas is something we are all really looking forward to. Christmas has always been a family holiday and when we were little our traditions consisted of putting up the tree together, checking our stockings every day, drinking hot chocolate while opening one present on Christmas Eve, and waking up early on Christmas Day to open the rest of our presents in our pyjamas. My sister and I would spend the next several days sitting on the floor, playing with our new dolls. I think living in the same city as my sister was something we took for granted until we both moved away from home. This year we don't have anything festive planned in particular, but are just doing all the things we missed out on doing together throughout the year. We are going to sit at our favourite coffee shop, read books together on the couch, and do each other's makeup just to stay in. I want to do some Christmas baking as well, I usually make Christmas cookies to hand out to my friends, maybe I'll convince my sister to help me bake a yule log for our family dinner as well. My mom usually hosts a big family dinner and we invite our aunt, uncle, and cousin. She spends the day cooking turkey, and my sister and I help out with stuffing and mashed potatoes. It's so nice to have everyone under the same roof for the holidays and I cherish it so much. <3

And of course, lately my Christmas has also consisted of spending some time on TBT and completing the events on here. I've always said this, but TBT is a community I see myself being a part of for a long time. I'm so grateful I happened upon it when I did, and it gives me events to look forward to and friends to share time with on the holidays that I can't spend with my family. <3

Anyways, here is an ACNH screen capture showing me and my sister baking a yule log for Christmas (since I don't have a second player on my island, she is represented by Dotty, her favourite villager):

 

[Antonio]

Nothing like a Home Cooked Meal
The question that I wanted to ask was, what does Christmas or the holiday season mean to me? Well, I absolutely love the food aspect of the holiday. No matter the holidays I am celebrating, being with my family and eating a gigantic ass meal with them always makes my heart warm. For instance, my mom absolutely works hard and cooks a turkey and a ham for the main course. Additionally, she cooks multiples sides to back up that absolutely banger main course. These side dishes include mashed potatoes with gravy, green bean casserole, yams with brown sugar, butter corn, and oven baked butter rolls.

It’s hard on my mother to cook these things, due to her back pain and working as a manager at Walgreens. However, she makes time to make sure that everyone is happy, despite the nasty troubles she faces. I absolutely love my mother and everything she does. I would love to help her whenever she cooks, but she likes to get into the zone, without me distracting her, which I totally understand. So, even though I want to help her cook, I understand that she is working hard, and I should respect her wishes so instead, I provide a picture of me cooking hoping one day she’ll let me help. Anyway, I do help around the house with chores like feeding the cats, sweeping, washing dishes, taking care of the trash, and so much more.

I love my mom very much and wish to help her with whatever I can. I do love the food she cooks, so when I do visit her during the holidays, eating her home cooks meals brings me absolute joy. I may not be the best writer, but I sure as hell am the best eater when it comes to my moms' food.​

 

[Holla]

I haven't done it in recent years, but as a kid I would take part in Operation Christmas Child. For those that don't know Operation Christmas Child is a program where you purchase an empty shoebox for child in a certain age range and gender. You then fill the box with small gifts to be sent somewhere else in the world to a less fortunate child. My Mom would typically get two. One she would fill for a boy and she'd let me do one for a girl of similar age. One year in particular I remember going full out on decorating the box. Normally the box is plain white and decorating it is completely optional. I took coloured pencils and coloured just about every side of the box (as you can see roughly recreated in my drawing above). I put candy cane stripes around all sides of the box and had a nighttime scene on the top with a Christmas tree in the center. I probably drew other Christmas things as well but can't remember exactly what so I made my best guess in the drawing above. I did this specific box at about age 10 if I had to guess. Inside the box where things like a mini teddy bear, cute face cloths, pencils, mini notebooks/journals among other things.

Giving to others is probably one of my favourite things about Christmas personally.

 

[Princess Mipha]

I would like to share how I used to celebrate christmas with my family when I was a kid.
It all starts on christmas morning, which is the 24th december for me.
My mother is preparing a nice little breakfast and we all sit together on the table,
with all four candles light up. Usually I had the honor of lighting them up.
Once we finished with the breakfast me and my father would decorate the christmas tree
and after that we would just do our own thing for a little while until around 4 PM.

Then it's time to visit the grave of my fathers grandmother
(she used to be his "mother", since his parents passed very early in his childhood)..
we also would visit the grave of his parents. I always had the mission to decorate
the christmas star (Poinsettia) for the grave. I loved to put extra much glitter on it.

Anyways, once we were done with the graveyard it was time for dinner: Potato salad and wiener.
It's the most simple food, but that is the good part about it. I absolutely loved it.

After finishing up, me and my brother would go into my room and start playing on my consoles
or talk about things we hope to get this year from Santa. My father was making sure we
wouldn't sneak into the living room where my Mo.. I mean Santa was preparing all the presents.
When everything was ready we would hear a ringing from a bell that I still have standing next
to me to this day. Nobody was allowed to ring it until we were allowed to enter the living room.

Everything was beautifully prepared - christmas music, warmth, biscuits and presents under the tree.
It was the most comforting feeling in the world. We start unwrapping the presents,
checking out what the other got and of course said a hundred times 'Thank you' to our parents.
After everything was opened up and inspected we'd drink a cup of tea and watch a christmas movie
until it was time to go to bed. I'd give everything to have a christmas eve like that once more.

​

 

[-Blue-]

While I do have traditions I do for Christmas, they're probably similar to what many others do. Meet family during Christmas Eve/Day, exchange gifts, decorate the house, string up lights outside, make gingerbread houses and the such. All fun stuff that I enjoy doing even though some of them are more time consuming than other traditional tasks.

The Snowball War​

So I thought I'd share something I did one year. It's not a tradition and it happened by chance, but it was close to the holidays and it was still fun. The events leading up to it not so much. So I am a Civil War reenactor. I have mentioned that a few times here, but not a lot so many of you may not know that. There was a particular event that I took part in around this time many years ago. I normally join up with the same company and we portray a unit that was around during the actual war.

To get some insight, if you're not aware of reenactments, we set up tents in patterns similar to a military camp. These tents are where we will be for the duration of the weekend when not participating in a battle scenario for the public and the such. And anything after the war cannot be seen by the public. So you're mostly living like they did back then. This is manageable to do during the Summer as you just have to battle the heat, but during late fall and winter those tents don't give you any support.

The weather was supposed to be relatively decent. It wasn't supposed to be warm, but still manageable. The temperature kept dropping as the first night went by until it was almost unbearable...then it started snowing when there wasn't any in the forecast. And it snowed its butt off. And all I was thinking was why did I do this? I could be sipping on hot cocoa right now...instead I was sipping icy canteen water, pulling out every blanket I brought, and putting all of my socks on at once.

Then morning came and I was kind of worried to look out my tent, but I braved it and saw about one foot of snow all over everything. The event was obviously canceled and we all knew it would be last night when the weather took a turn for the worst. But to make the best out of a bad situation, some of us reenactors on both sides decided to have a massive snowball fight. It was honestly kind of fun, despite it being so cold.

We had some of us packing snowballs and setting them aside, while others stood shoulder to shoulder and 'fired' snowballs as a command, and I got to be part of a snowball skirmish. I volunteered because it sounded better than having to stand still and be pelted. I believe some of the reenactors who agreed to the snowball fight did so because of the actual snowball battle that happened in the war. So they could have the chance to say they took part in the 1st reenacmtent of the great snowball battle.

 

[Dwayne Johnson]

personally i was never the biggest fan of christmas, it was fun as a kid of course but having your birthday fall the week before it, it always ruined it, which sucked. as i've gotten older though and as a current compsci student used to heavy workloads, i appreciate the holidays as it gives me the time i need to rest and recharge. I do still enjoy christmas dinners, seeing relatives, and getting free stuff, but most of all now i look forward to not having any deadlines to meet for a few weeks.

usually i'll use my free time to catch up on shows or movies i've wanted to watch, this year im thinking about finally watching the Mandalorian and maybe rewatching ATLA for the first time in years, maybe i'll even watch my favourite holiday movie, jingle all the way (its grown on me over the years).

another thing i like about break is i can game without worrying about setting limits, i have a few games i want to get through while im on break, i just finished Castlevania: Symphony of the Night the other day, and now i'm on to playing Judgment.

as for what i'll be doing on christmas, i'll be going down to my fathers family home christmas day for dinner with relatives.

 

[Amissapanda]

Many years ago, Christmas was I time which I joyously spent with family. I was a middle child in a decently large family of four children. I was reasonably closer to my older and younger brother who were close in age. And as a Christmas tradition, we would always watch a family Christmas movie together on Christmas eve and enjoy mom's amazing homemade pork pies. As kids, my brothers and I could hardly ever fall asleep from the excitement of Christmas. We had a gaming system moved into the biggest room that two us shared and as per a tradition we started, we would play video games together into the wee hours of the morning. It kept us occupied and gave us a way to channel the excitement while also spending time together and having fun.

We've all grown up in many years since. My siblings are all married and moved very far away. We're scattered across the USA now. Such old memories can no longer be revisited from those times past. It's just not realistic when they live so far away and some even have families of their own to take care of now.

But... we have a new tradition. Last year, my older brother suggested that we get together on Animal Crossing, jump in the family Discord voice channel, and spend time together talking, taking pictures, and visiting each other's islands for a little Christmas get-together. It was a really good time. And it's surreal to think now that I was not only hanging out with my siblings... but also their wives and children who also play Animal Crossing, as well. It has been a fun little thing to bring us all together from even far away and something I have grown to treasure even after just a single year that we've done it. I look forward to it again this year. It may not be exactly the same as being there in person, but it's still a way to connect and share the warmth of the holiday spirit with family.

I hope that everyone can remember that the space between us doesn't dictate that we can't be together in one form or another if we're willing to look for a way to achieve it. Years ago, the connections we have possible today would never have been possible. Now you can reach family easily with video calls, games, and much more. And it's something that I treasure and won't take for granted. I can still see and speak with family members far away and still share the joy of Christmas with a family that is ever-growing bigger as we age and have families and endure life changes of our own.

[ Pictured below is a shot of us on my older brother's island last Christmas---my older brother on the right, his wife next to him, his two sons across the table on the left, and my younger brother's wife next to me in the middle.]

 

[Kitsuragi]

I'm putting this under a spoiler cause I very, very briefly mention a bad situation my partner and i were in, and I don't want to harm anyone. If the mods find it to be too much, i'll change my story to something more light-hearted!

Spoiler: story & image

My partner and I are starting our own traditions this year. This is the first year we've spent Christmas together in person since the start of our relationship, due to being in an LDR. We've planned to set up the Christmas tree tomorrow, and we've also got our Christmas day meal planned out. We haven't gotten much beyond that yet, but it's definitely a break from our old terrible Christmas traditions. We both come from less than fortunate and ab*sive households, so both him and I are working together to end the guilt and anxiety that usually sets in at this time of year. It may not be much, but dinner and a movie together is such a comfier, happier experience than what we've both been experiencing since childhood. I'm so excited to spend time with someone that I care for so deeply, and i'm more excited that we get to spend my favorite Holiday together.

Our holiday meal plan this year is a small honey-glazed ham, homemade mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and sugar cookies from scratch! Since him and I work at the same place together, we're planning to bring in our extra cookies to work to share with our coworkers. I'm very thankful to have someone like him in my life, as we're both very similar in personality and upbringings. Oh, we've also got our two lovely cats that are joining us this year, too! We're filling their small kitty stockings full of treats and small fun toys for them.

My partner and I are going to open our presents together on the morning of Christmas, but we'll probably be sleeping in late due to working on Christmas Eve. I'm really looking forward to it! Oh, and I was gonna invite him for photos on my island, but he's playing something else right now. Maybe next time!